The opening night film was Only The Brave from director Lane Nishikawa. The film traces a small group of Japanese-American soldiers from the 100th/442 in WWII on a mission in France. There have been a couple of films to deal with this subject, but none from the perspective of the soldiers. A good portion of the running time was dedicated to flashbacks probing further into the soldiers' pre-war lives. The group of soldiers liberates a group of Army soldiers surrounded by the Germans and takes heavy casualties. All in all a good effort, there was special attention paid to each of the main characters.

The director was in attendance and made his dedication to the subject matter very plain. He spoke about attending lots of vets' reunions and speaking with the families of fallen soldiers and his own family (he had three uncles in the war). The cut that was shown to us was not final, but they said it was pretty close. I wouldn't look for any sort of release of this for a while.

The second night was House Of Fury and Initial D, two very different movies linked by one of my favorite actors, Anthony Wong. Fury was a very fun film. It had a Bond vibe and the fighting was excellent, not to mention many very funny moments. Particularly entertaining was an early brawl in which Anthony Wong turns in a pretty funny Bruce Lee interpretation. Another bit I liked was that of a kid in the movie who played the lead baddie's son. It looked like he was doing his own action, and it was very impressive!

Initial D was a racing movie, I'm sure most of you know the basic outline. The racing segments were great with a minimum of CG for some of the more dangerous bits. Jay Chou as "Takumi" was very good as the disaffected racing prodigy, and Wong as his father was again very funny. Lots of funny scenes and performances interspersed through the film to counterweight the heavy driving. The audience was a strange mix of manga fans and American street racers; I think everyone had a good time, though.

Night three was a long one, I was there for Journey From The Fall, Shinobi, and Death Trance. Journey was the first and so far only sell-out screening I've attended. In fact, had I not had the VIP pass, I would've missed it. I'm glad I didn't. It is the story of a family leaving Vietnam following the fall of Saigon. The father parts ways with the rest of his family in order to stay and fight. He goes through hell at post war re-education camps with other former soldiers, all the while dreaming of getting back to his family. The family—grandmother, mother, and son—attempt to escape to Malaysia for asylum, but the journey proves to be harder than they'd ever imagined. A very emotional ride, in an auditorium filled with Vietnamese families, some of whom had flown hundreds of miles to attend. Director Ham Tran was there and did a Q & A after the film, including explaining some stories that didn't make it into the film. Great show and one of the best of the festival.

Shinobi and Death Trance followed and brought a slightly lighter tone to the remainder of the evening, probably not something those films are used to bringing. A good double bill certainly. I preferred Shinobi as I wasn't really a huge fan of Versus (sue me), and Shinobi had far better acting performances and production value.

I'm all for gonzo filmmaking, but Death Trance was a bit loose for my taste. The choreography of some of the fighting sequences was very good though, and Tak Sakaguchi definitely delivered the goods in that department. Kentaro Seagal wasn't bad either, but he was not in the same class, though Kentaro's hairdo deserves accolades of its own.

Sunday I only managed to catch the centerpiece film, Citizen Dog. Wow. A stunning visual effort. The story of the love between two transplanted country people Pod and Jin, the story goes from one extremely bizarre but picturesque moment to another for two hours. It owes a huge debt to Jean-Pierre Jeunet, and Amelie in particular, but I think I caught a little Wes Anderson in there too. Probably the best reaction from the crowd so far has been the laughs in Citizen Dog. The film is filled with outrageous colors, twists of fate, scenery, set-pieces, and characters, and is destined to be a favorite among Twitch readers.

Tonight I caught three more features: docs A Chink In The Armour and The Slanted Screen screened together, followed by The Great Yokai War and Green Chair. Chink is a very funny short subject exploring the validity of stereotypes about Chinese people and people of Chinese descent living in Canada. The Slanted Screen was an exploration of the history of the Asian male in American films. I found this pretty interesting; I like this sort of film. Interviewees included Mako, Jason Scott Lee, and Terrence Chang among others.

The second best audience reaction so far came during The Great Yokai War. The auditorium wasn't as packed as I'd expected, but there was a decent crowd. I've had this on DVD for some time, but seeing it on the big screen was really fun, something definitely gets lost in translation from big screen to small screen. I knew what to expect coming in, but I don't think the rest of the audience was quite there with me and that was a fun experience seeing it in a room with others. The big stuff was extra impressive, and seeing Chiaki Kuriyama let loose again Kill Bill-style was also fun. The story really boiled down to Tadashi fighting his way to the evil Kato to save a little furry cat/mouse/gerbil yokai called Sunekosuri. A very fun theatrical experience.

The final film tonight was Green Chair, a romantic/erotic comedy from Korea. Some of the scenes were surprisingly graphic and frank in their discussion of sex. All in all it was an enjoyable film. The audience was very curiously laughing at inappropriate parts, which kind of threw me out of the movie, but other than that it was fun.

I've still got about seven movies to go before the closer on Thursday so I guess I'll write more about those later on. So far, so great!